Liberation Exhibition - CCA Galleries International is delighted to announce a Liberation exhibition featuring a series of seven unique mixed media, and gouache drawings, of events that took place during the Jersey Occupation. The exhibition officially opens on Wednesday 29 April and runs until 16 May 2015.
The drawings have been recovered from a house in Jersey which was empty for over fifteen years. Although the identity of the artist is unknown, the drawings successfully convey the brutality of the Nazi regime upon Jerseys’ inhabitants and illustrate the slave labour endured by refugees from Spain, Morocco, Russia and Poland.
Art collector and owner of the drawings, Paul Roberts talks about his intention for the show; ‘I bought these at an auction in March 2006, they tell a personal story - clearly depicted through the eyes of someone who had been through the occupation. There is however, a dark side to each of the drawings, which the artist working for Gems Studio, has captured, clearly showing the misery of life inflicted by such a brutal Nazi regime, upon the Jersey people during the five years of German occupation. The story will continue to unfold as I find out more about the origins of the drawings’.
Each drawing is stamped ‘Gems (Wax Models) Ltd’. Gems Studio was set up in 1885 by Julius Gems and quickly became the largest and most successful family owned business working with costume curators and conservators from around the world, it was the leading maker of dressmaker's forms of its day, supplying many of the crown heads, with a client list including the Imperial War Museum, London, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Buckingham Palace and the Museum of London to name but a few. The business thrived throughout the 1940s finding a market for wax figures, including Madame Tussaud's after their disastrous fire in the 1940s.
Gallery Manager, Liz Purgal says; ‘This exhibition marks 70 years since the liberation of the Channel Islands. These original period drawings are particularly significant as they have never been seen in Jersey or anywhere else in the world.’
Image: 'Liberation Day' stamped by Gems (Wax Models) Ltd.